From the Catalogue:Robert Frank recognized the distinct role the automobile played in mid-century American culture. Having spent an extensive amount of time traveling on the road while creating The Americans, cars became a regular theme in his photographs, grounding his images in both a specific time and place. Taken in the Chicago Loop, Chicago, 1959 captures the rear bumper of a 1959 Cadillac perched at the top of a parking garage, basking in the sunlight, its stylish angularity projecting out from the surrounding rectangular buildings. Shot from below and featuring an almost heavenly bright light shining on the Cadillac, Frank presents the car as an object of reverence and harbinger of the American dream.—Courtesy of Phillips

Signature: Signed, titled and dated '1951' [sic] in ink in the margin.

About Robert Frank

One of the most acclaimed photographers of the 20th century, Robert Frank is best known for his seminal book The Americans, featuring photographs taken by the artist in the mid-1950s as he traveled across the U.S. on a Guggenheim fellowship. These photographs feature glimpses of highways, cars, parades, jukeboxes, and diners as iconic symbols of America while simultaneously suggesting an underlying sense of alienation and hardship. Frank’s loose, casual approach often generated blurred imagery and tilted horizons, causing his photographic style to be as controversial as his subject matter. In the 1950s, Frank was a regular contributor to Harper’s Bazaar, but later turned his focus from still images to filmmaking, creating classics of American subculture such as Pull My Daisy (1959).